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you must go. It will lead you to Caledonia. Once you are there, all will come to you. Until then—and please heed me well—you must not let loose the stone. Guard it with your life, with your last breath, until you have found the real MacAoidh. Only then must you release it. And only unto him.”
    “So it is a man ... ?”
    And then, as if he’d been a trick of the moonlight, the comte turned, and vanished.
    “Monsieur? Monsieur le comte? Where have you—?”
    But she was speaking to the shadows.
    Isabella stood there, alone in that brilliant room, trying for some time to decide whether the past several moments had truly happened.
    Had it been a dream?
    Had she walked in her sleep to find herself there in the
Galerie
alone?
    But, she couldn’t have because the weight of the stone was heavy around her neck and her heart was pounding even now.
    The comte was right. It was no ordinary stone. As she climbed the dark stairwell leading back to her room, it held a glow that couldn’t be explained, lighting her way.
    Heed the stone ... it will lead you to where you must go ...
    Who was this MacAoidh he had charged her with finding? And why had he chosen her?
    As she made her way slowly back to the apartment, Isabella wondered if she should just take the chain from around her neck, give the stone to a palace footman to return to the comte the next morning after she’d gone. She could forget all about this meeting and this night. She could go back to her life, to her future in England.
    But something he’d said, the subtle danger in the comte’s mystical words, gave her pause.
    It must be returned, else all hope will be lost forever.
    Forever.
    Isabella had wanted an adventure.
    Little did she know, the adventure had only begun.
    * * *
    Captain Jeremiah Grange scanned the northern horizon with the keen eye of a lifelong sailing man.
    It was a dreary day, the skies dull and gray, the wind brisk, slapping at the sails on his sleek new sloop as they cut through the restless churn of the North Sea.
    It was the sort of day that kept sailors sharp about their wits. At any moment, a sea squall could burst from behind the sagging clouds and buffet them off their course. But Grange had been traversing these waters between England and the Continent for nigh on thirty years. He knew every stretch, every stream, and every pull. It was how he made his living, and he was proud to say he’d weathered more than his fair share of sea gale with ne’er a man of his crew lost.
    It was that sort of success that gave a man his confidence, a sense of ease in the way his gnarled hands rested upon the spokes of the ship’s polished wheel. But it also served to give him another sense, the
sailor’s wisdom
they called it, that mysterious gift that allowed him to look out at the empty expanse of water and wind and sky stretching before him and know, just know something was brewing.
    “Ahoy!” he called to Davy who sat high in the crow’s nest on the foremast. Davy had the best eyes of his crew, like a hawk, that lad, and he took to his duties with a true sailor’s pride. “Eyes wide, lad!”
    “Aye, Cap’n!” a voice called from above. “She’s thicker’n coal smoke, she is, today.”
    “Bloody fog ...” Grange muttered to himself, and pulled the collar of his coat closer against his ears to stave off the biting wind.
    He’d be easier, he knew, if he were only making the short crossing from Calais to Dover. It would be five, six hours at most and he’d have sight of land at most all times, not this changeable, inscrutable enigma of the open North Sea.
    Had he his choice, he’d like to turn the ship along shore of England, particularly in such a fog, but knew his timetable required the open sea, away from the fishing trawlers and other smaller craft that peppered the shallower waters of the coast. He’d be forced to slow, likely doubling his sailing time, and he rather doubted his passengers were of a mind for a pleasure cruise. And